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"I fell into it. It's that simple," says hobby writer Terry Jessee about his upcoming book for MotorBooks International Publishing (MBI).

Jessee, who's been writing about model pickups and cop cars for more than 15 years, will release something totally different next spring. It's a history about the model car hobby called Hot Rod Model Kits. The book is a new offering in MBI's popular "Color Enthusiast Gallery" series.

"I'd been working on articles for Scale Auto and other magazines for almost a dozen years when Bill Coulter called me in 1995 and asked if I'd like to collaborate with him and with Pat Covert on a book about pickup truck models," Jessee says. "Once that was completed, Kalmbach Publishing asked if I had any other ideas, and I told them I wanted to do a book about emergency vehicles.

"I had yet another idea once the second book was done," he says. "I thought it would be fun to do a book about modeling 'car guys' cars. I called it Building and Detailing Scale Model American Car Classics. The idea was to do kind of 'buzzword' cars in model form—GTOs, Deuce coupes, T buckets, Boss Mustangs, that sort of thing.

"Each chapter was going to focus on a different car and different building techniques, ranging from basic to more advanced. Kalmbach's editors liked it," Jessee says," so we started the contract process in August of '98.

"That was just when Kalmbach had kind of a shakeup in management. My book and a couple of others got cancelled in the process, so I started shopping around for another publisher." Jessee contacted Motorbooks, International in October of 1998. They liked his idea, but told him that they didn't do model how-to books.

"I remarked that I was disappointed because this book allowed me to do some hot rod models, something I hadn't been able to write about before." MBI's editor, Keith Mathiowetz, replied that MBI was working on a book about hot rod models, but said that theirs was a history about the hobby. "I asked who was writing it, and Keith told me that they were still looking for someone appropriate to put it together," Jessee recalls. "I offered, and he said he'd look over my other proposal and get back to me."

A few days later, Mathiowetz did call back and offered a contract. Jessee agreed.

"Then I panicked!" he says. "I was going to do a history about hot rod model kits and the model companies, and I owned about four kits! So I really had to scramble to find kits, and to figure out how to get in touch with people like George Barris and Ed Roth. Then I had to find some of the old time designers and model executives.

"The worst part," Jessee says, " was that I had only seven months to do it. On the earlier books, I had a year. This book had to be done in July, and we signed the contract just after Thanksgiving!"

Jessee's first call was to a friend in Nebraska. "I've got a buddy I've been trading with for about 20 years," he says. "Mark Abrahamson is a collector's collector. Even though he doesn't build hot rod models, I knew he'd have some good sources.

"From there, I started bugging everybody I knew to see who had kits I could buy, borrow, or get photographed."

Photographs of old kits and built models became even more important than finding the kits themselves. "Given the time constraints I had, finding photos of vintage models built in that '60s fashion was a godsend because I didn't have to worry about BUILDING them!"

Surprisingly, many people were able to offer assistance. Veteran hobby writer Rick Hanmore provided more than a dozen photos of vintage hot rods and customs. Ed Wright, a long-time collector and builder from Utah, offered a basement full of built models and kit boxes which he'd accumulated over four decades.

Jessee worked the Web, too. "I'd heard about eBay, but I had never looked at it. A modeling buddy named Terry Thormahlen suggested that I try eBay to find vintage kits. Terry had picked up a number of nice items over the previous summer, and thought it might be a good source.

"I signed up and started watching the auction listings. It was the motherlode! I found things I'd only heard of before, and found a few kits I'd NEVER heard of.

"In January alone, I bought about 140 vintage kits. In fact, that seemed like ALL I was doing was buying kits, but eventually that settled down and I got to work on other aspects of it."

One of those aspects was tracking down people who had worked at Revell, AMT, MPC, and Monogram during the '50s and '60s. "Early on," Jessee recalls, "MBI's people figured that, with the limited space available in the book, it was best to concentrate on the so-called 'Big Four' companies, then do a chapter on all the others.

"So the first thing I did was call John Mueller at AMT. John's been with them since '62 and was really pleased to help. He gave me the names and phone numbers for a number of other kit designers and engineers. I contacted those guys and started doing interviews."

Mark Gustavson at the National Model Car Builders' Museum in Salt Lake City provided even greater assistance. "Mark knows a lot of the '60s customizers, like George Barris, Ed Roth, and Darryl Starbird. So he offered to make introductions to those guys so we could talk about their involvement with the companies."

Even with introductions, getting interviews was difficult. "Those guys are so busy," Jessee says. "I got maybe 40 seconds with Darryl Starbird, and never could get back to him. It wasn't because he didn't want to talk. He was just gone so much.

"The interview with George Barris consisted of about five 3-minute phone calls," says Jessee. "Just about the time he'd get started telling stories, someone would interrupt and he'd have to get off the phone. I got a couple of good stories, though, because he seemed to remember where we left off each time."

Ed Roth was another situation entirely. "Ed was really leery of doing an interview," Jessee says, "because some guy had misquoted him badly a couple of years before. He just didn't really want to do an interview."

Jessee resorted to sending down written questions for Roth to answer. "At first we started by regular mail, but then he sent me an e-mail and we continued that way.

"I wanted to do sidebar stories on each of these guys based on the interviews, and use some material in writing the chapter narratives. What I got from Ed was this wonderful 'Big Daddy' version of his time with Revell, so we asked for and got permission to print that verbatim.

"So when you read the Revell chapter, there's this sidebar that was actually written by Ed himself. I was really tickled to be able to include something like that."

Jessee tracked down automotive designer and illustrator Tom Daniel through an on-line fan club website created by TD collector Phil Davis. "Phil was just wonderful. He made the introduction for me, and consented to an interview himself to talk about how he got involved with Tom and the Monogram kits.

"And Tom Daniel was a wonder," Jessee says." Not only did he do a long interview, he sent me photos of vintage Monogram promotional materials from his own collection. We had to copy them because some were more than 20 years old, but they turned out great."

Other interviews included Jim Keeler and Bob Paeth from Revell, Roger Harney from Monogram, George Toteff from MPC, and kit designers Tom West, Dave Carlock and Bill Depuy. "We did most of those by phone. I can remember that the February long distance bill was almost $500! But all of those guys did great interviews, and told some fun stories about their days with the companies."

And in the midst of all that, Jessee was building models. "At first I didn't know what I'd need, or what I could get from other people," he says. "So I just started building. I did 46 kits in four months, and they're not bad looking, either!"

He also took photos. "I took TONS of photos," Jessee says. "I photographed boxes and box art, advertising, magazine covers, old Auto World catalogs, anything I could find. I've got this library of about 650 individual photographs, most with multiple exposures. I think in all I took about 1700 slides, and that doesn't count what I got from other people."

The irony is that only 80 photos will appear in the book. "The books in that series are done from a formula. They have 96 pages and 80 photos," he says. "I think they fudged a little where they had some extra white space. Still, though, I sent only 110 slides and about 25 of those got cut.

"Some great stuff didn't make the book. I went down to the Museum in Salt Lake and spent one full day taking photos of models on display, with Mark helping. I got a number of Dave Shuklis's models, but I don't think any of those are included in the final version," Jessee says. "One of Don Emmons' models made it, though. That was the Mura Brothers '40 Willys pickup from his article in Rod & Custom Models."

All the effort paid off, though. Jessee got the book in on schedule and was rewarded with an early release date. Last October, Jessee got a copy of the final galley proofs to review. "I was supposed to check for errors and look for mismatched photos and captions, that sort of thing. But I just sat down and read it like it was the first time I'd ever seen it.

"I think people will like it. It's full color and the photographs are going to be beautiful. It's a pretty book, really.

"It's not any kind of comprehensive history," Jessee says. "I know that. Dennis Doty pegged it best when he called it a 'sketch.' But it's great sketch, and I hope it'll inspire other people to develop more comprehensive projects about the model companies and the growth and history of this hobby.

"But not me," he laughs. "I'm tired!"

MBI Publishing (the Classic Motorbooks catalog) lists the book with an April, 2000 release date. Suggested retail price is $13.95. It is available from Amazon.com

Jessee's original idea for the book cover was this Andy Southard-inspired shot of some vintage models "parked" in front of a diner. To get the right light, he shot the photo just after sunrise one morning in July. "I got some strange looks from a couple of cops," he recalls. "They came over to see what I was doing and were pretty impressed by the models." MBI's editors liked the photo, but dismissed it as "too horizontal." The models (from left to right) are AMT's '34 Ford pickup, Monogram's '30 Ford Woody, AMT's chopped '25 T coupe, and Monogram's Deuce roadster.

The next photo concept was this shot of a modeler's workbench. MBI rejected this one because it was too cluttered. The shot includes AMT's '25 T coupe and Revell's "Stone-Woods-Cook" '41 Willys. In the background are autographed photos from Tom Daniel and Don Emmons.

Another proposed cover shot was this spread of Revell drag models. Again, this was rejected because it was "too horizontal" and because it depicted models from only Revell. At top is Revell's "Orange Crate" '32 Ford, a model which was built especially for the book by Vaughn Kemph. In front are the SWC Willys, the Thames panel gasser, the Tony Nancy 22jr roadster, and the Mooneyes dragster. Those models were built by Chuck Munson and Ted Kellison.

Jessee finally resorted to using a professional photographer to get a cover shot. This early idea was rejected, too. MBI's editors liked the basic concept, though, so they suggested repositioning the models to get what became the final cover shot.

Jessee photographed a number of models from the National Model Car Builders' Museum at Salt Lake City, but most were cut from the final text. This is a photo of the restored "Red Rever" Deuce coupe built by Dave Shuklis in about 1961.

The model was featured on an early cover of Car Model magazine. Although Dave died in the mid-70s, much of his collection survives today thanks to the efforts of Mark Gustavson, Oscar Koveleski of Auto World, and gifted modelers who volunteered to perform the restorations.

Another famous early model was R.A. "Smitty" Smith's "Crusader" '40 Ford sedan. This exotic custom was the subject of several how-to articles in 1963. Gustavson obtained the model from Dennis Doty and spent several years restoring it to this condition.

Like the Shuklis coupe, the Crusader was featured on the cover of Car Model magazine at the time.

Revell carved pattern bucks from wood in 1/10 scale. Those were pantographed down 2-1/2 times during the cutting of the tooling, resulting in a 1/25 scale model. This pattern buck for the Roth "Road Agent" was salvaged by Darrell Zipp and is part of his collection of Revell memorabilia.

In case you're wondering, a lot of those famous '60s modelers are still active. This shot shows Don Emmons, Augie Hiscano, and Bob Paeth at Salt Lake City in 1999. Emmons is still writing on a regular basis for Petersen Publishing. Paeth has moved to Portland, OR where he sponsors "The Best of the Best," a model contest made up solely of best-of-show winners. And Augie Hiscano took Best-Of-Show at GSLMCC for a record-breaking THIRD time in 1999. Then he announced his retirement from competitive model building. Augie was the 1964 National Co-champion in the Revell/Pactra Nationals.

Jessee found this "unsung model" hidden on a back shelf at the National Model Car Builders' Museum. It appears to be an AMT '32 Ford coupe with a pickup box from the Double T grafted onto the rear in place of the trunk. It was displayed with a set of tools and trophies (not visible) on that dusty, rabbit-fur "cloud."

Models like this, he says, are as much a part of the history as any of the "famous" models.

(Click on red highlight links or the book cover to get this book from Amazon.com!)

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